AVR Serial (UART) communication get explained.

Evil Mad Scientist Labs presents an in-depth tutorial on AVR serial communication, provided with ATiny2313 and ATmega example codes. Another must-read article from them!


Link:
Basics: Serial communication with AVR microcontrollers

Easy 4 Legged Walker bot.

Recently I am studying on servo motors with AVR, one of the basic element of making robots. I am thinking to start a simple project to play around with servo motors, a simpleWalker: 4-legged 2 servo walking robots may be a good choice. The full instructions are on instructables.

Video:

Cheap wireless solution for AVR/MCU projects.

The nRF24L01+ is a 2.4GHZ RF Transceiver produced by NORDIC semiconductor, it is a very small , powerful and low-power solution for your home project. I am studying how to interface with my AVR MCUs. Luckily, I found out someone has a driver written for AVR, it is well-documented and easy to follow. Check out the link here: http://www.tinkerer.eu/AVRLib/nRF24L01. Basically, you need to have a SPI interface, so most of the AVR MCUs have! so How far can it goes? Sparkfun did a test, around 360feet LOS.

Robo One humanoid robots get demostrated in Hong Kong.

Just get back from an event showing the robo-one humanoid robots in Hong Kong. For the readers who don't know what is Robo-one, Robo-one is a humanoid robot wrestling game in Japan, which is a one-on-one match. Each side controls a humanoid robot and tries to make another side fall on the ground. Many Japanese players create their own humanoid robot for the competition. The KYOSHO, a famous RF toys maker, produced 2 humanoid robots (MANOI PF01 & AT01) which can be played in robo-one. So now you can purchase one from kyosho and modify your own without building from scratch!

Some photos from the event:


# All robots


# MANOI AT01 in pink


# MANOI AT01 kicks ball


# MANOI PF01 cute look.


# Football time! Have fun.

Video of the Robo-one, Japan:


Awesome! right?

Blimpbot controlled by Android G1 wirelessly.

It is controlled by moving the android G1, the directions are calculated from the accelerometer inside the android G1. So you G1 is just like your Wiimote now. Moreover, there is a camera on the blimp, so you can see the video streaming from the blimp in real time also. It is a really cool project. I hope I can play with blimp too! May be later, you all may see my blimp project:) Cheers.


Link:
http://www.surveyor.com/

ASIMO - New Artificial Intelligence Demostration.

ASIMO again?

OK, I admit that I am very addicted to this dream work by HONDA. But the new ASIMO (Baby version) is really amazing, we are not talking about walking and running anymore. It is learning! ASIMO can now identify 100+ objects, and also can learn and judge the similarity of different objects. That's truly awesome. Check it out:

Cute 10x10 LED Matrix / SHARP LT5003D

Recently, some people ask me where to find the cute 10x10 led matrix showing in my AVR LED egg project.

Photos:

You can see how small it is when compares to the normal 8x8 LED Matrix.


So where did I get it? I bought it from Tokyo, Japan. More precisely, it is Akihabara. Most of the people go there to buy anime, comic or electronic goods. But there are some shops selling electronic parts or even robot parts. Everytime, I go to Tokyo, I will go there to buy some interesting components which seems to be selling only in Japan. Between, the 10x10 Led matrix is SHARP LT5003D if you want to find it.

Photos:




People are busy finding components or parts!

Next time when you are in Tokyo, remember to go there to have a look! May be you can find some good stuffs for your next DIY project!